Juvenile Justice System and Risk Factor Data - Illinois Criminal ...

Special issues
Disproportionate minority contact
Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the juvenile justice system is of increasing
concern to lawm akers and policymakers. D MC refers to an empirical finding across the U.S. that
a higher percentage of minority youth are involved in the juvenile justice system than their
representation in the general population. In 2003, black youth comprised 16 percent of all youth,
37 percent of youth detained, and 58 percent of youth admitted to adult prisons. 30 The rate of
minority overrepresentation in juvenile justice systems across the country has contributed to
greater scrutiny of juvenile justice system decision-making and the examination of how other
factors correlated with race, such as poverty, contribute to the over-representation of minorities.
The federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act, amended in 1988, required
each state participating in formula grant programs administered by the U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to assess the extent of
over-representation of confined minority youth. In 1992, Congress expanded the mandate
regarding DMC and required states with an over-representation of minorities in the juvenile
justice system to develop and implement plans to reduce it. The JJDP Act of 2002 broadened the
DMC initiative from disproportionate minority confinement to disproportionate minority contact
to cover minority youth at all decision points in the juvenile justice system.
From FY03 to FY05, the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission funded initiatives to reduce DMC
in Peoria County, St. Clair County, south suburbs of Cook County, and Chicago’s Lawndale
neighborhood. In FY06, the initiatives expanded to include sites in Macon County, Chicago’s
Englewood community, and Sauk Village. Each program site hired a local DMC coordinator to
work with the W. Haywood Burns Institute, a leading national organization that strives to reduce
the over-representation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system.
Another project to reduce DMC, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, funded by the
Annie E. Casey Foundation, is described in detail in the State initiatives section of this report.
Representation index
Several methods have been utilized to assess minority representation in the juvenile justice
system. One method for assessing DMC is to calculate a representation index (RI). AN RI
compares the percentage of all minority youth at a specific stage of the juvenile justice process to
the percentage of that same minority group in the general youth population of the jurisdiction of
interest.
In order to calculate the RI, the number of youth in the reference group (usually white youth) at
the specific stage, the number of youth in the minority group at the specific stage, the total
number of youth at the stage, the population of the reference group in the jurisdiction, the
population of the minority group in the jurisdiction, and the total youth population in the
jurisdiction are needed.
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